Astronaut speaks to Blair Pointe Elementary students

PERU, Ind. (AP) - Former astronaut Jerry Ross delivered an important message Monday to students at Blair Pointe Elementary School: If they reach for the stars and work hard, they can do anything they set their minds to.

Ross, who flew into space a record seven times, spoke to the students ahead of their communication with the International Space Station later this year. Blair Pointe is the only school in Indiana that will be able to communicate with the ISS after being awarded an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station Grant. Only 12 groups in the U.S. were awarded the grants last year.

Ross began by having the children repeat after him. "I am special. I am unique. I can do anything I want to do if I study hard enough, if I work hard enough, and if I don't give up too easily."

Ross, who was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2014, told the group of third through sixth graders that he started thinking about what he wanted to be when he was in the fourth grade.

He talked about growing up in Indiana - Crown Point - during the beginning of the space age, and how he dreamed of being a professional athlete, a firefighter or a farmer. But when the U.S. launched the Explorer 1 in January of 1958, Ross made up his mind: he wanted to work in the U.S. space program.

He and his mother would cut out magazine articles and pictures on space exploration. He saw that Purdue University was churning out scientists - including Neil Armstrong - who worked on space exploration. and he decided that's where he wanted to go to school.

"Being in the fourth grade and having already learned as much as I could about space at that point . I decided then and there that I wanted to go to Purdue University, I wanted to become an engineer and I wanted to get involved in our country's space program," Ross said.

He encouraged the students to think of the things that make them excited to do and follow their ambitions.

"I worked very hard every day of my life in school and beyond, but I never felt like I was working because what I was doing was so much fun that it felt like it was my hobby," he said. "That's what I really want young people to try to understand, is if they can find out what that thing is that motivates them, what is that thing that they would want to do and dream about, and the way my daughter puts it is: what floats your boat? What is it that makes you so excited that you would want to do for the rest of your life and be really excited about doing?"

He shared pictures and videos from his childhood and trips into space. One video showed what astronauts dealt with on a daily basis while in space, including how to brush their teeth and get exercise. He told the students the astronauts spent most of their time floating through the shuttle rather than staying strapped down because it was more fun to float.

"I'm sorry to tell you, Disney doesn't have a ride that comes close to this," he said.

At the end of his speech, he took questions from students and teachers, including whether he was ever nervous during any of his seven launches into space.

He said he wasn't, but he was apprehensive about riding on a vehicle with millions of parts all built by the lowest bidder.

One student asked whether Purdue has the highest number of graduates who became astronauts. Ross proudly answered that Purdue has the highest number for a public university. While other universities, including MIT and Stanford, have produced more astronauts, they are private institutions.

Rayvenn Norris and D'yon Terrell, fifth-graders at Blair Pointe, said they were inspired by Ross' speech.

"It was really, really cool," Norris said. "It made me want to become an astronaut."

Terrell said he'd like to have a variety of jobs, including being a police officer and, following Ross' speech, an astronaut. He said he liked hearing about Ross' trips to space.

"What if they brought kids to space?" Terrell said. "That would be really cool."

Ross said he considers his speeches successful if he was able to reach even just a few students. His goal is to get students thinking about what they want to do, whether it's becoming an astronaut or going into some other profession, and then to realize they need to work hard to achieve their goals.

"If you don't work hard, if you don't prepare yourself, if you don't apply and ask the questions, you'll never be selected," Ross said. "You'll never have the opportunity. You can take the easy way out and just never do some of these things and just kind of float along in life or you can try to engage in life and take it by the horns and try to wrestle it to the ground and try to have fun with it, and that's what I chose to do."

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Source: Kokomo Tribune, http://bit.ly/2kRKoxf

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Information from: Kokomo Tribune, http://www.ktonline.com